Debrief

Buzz Aldrin has lived an extraordinary life. He graduated third in his class at West Point, downed two MiGs in Korea, got a Ph.D. in Astronautics from MIT, completed what was at the time the longest spacewalk in history, and was the second man to walk on the moon.

Why fly… My family was very pioneering in early aviation. But I didn’t wash airplanes to get a ride in a barnstormer. I was not that gung ho.

In training… I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m not the hottest pilot who ever came along. I wasn’t the very first to solo in a T–6 in pilot training. It didn’t bother me all that much, as long as I eventually soloed.

Favorite aircraft… No hesitation—it was the F–86. But the T–28 was something that had a lot of promise. I tried a double Immelman and passed out on the way up. I woke up heading straight down for Texas with the throttle in one hand and a stick inanother. I didn’t do that again until I had a G-suit in an F–86.

Under stress… I was by myself after I saw the guy bail out of the MiG well north of the Yalu River. As a solo heading south, I didn’t have anyone protecting my rear end. The airplane wasn’t climbing as fast as I thought it should. I realized with great embarrassment that my speed brakes were out. I was trying to climb back home with full power and my speed brakes out. How stupid can you be? Experience as a pilot brings a successful pilot—the experience of knowing how to control your emotions by a real increased alertness.

Advice… Prudent expansive flying. Do things that are within the legality of flying but may not be normal run of the mill. Be aggressive but prudent at the same time. You gotta know your limits and the airplane’s limits.

Why West Point… I determined to [fly] via the military. The best way to do that was as a professional soldier at West Point, and not Annapolis because that might involve a divergence in getting sea sick.

On having a difficult father… When it looked like I might have missed the second application for astronaut training, he was soothing by saying, “Well you didn’t really want to do that anyway.”

Flying after the military… My alcoholism recovery was so spotty and it was supervised by the Navy captain in charge of the Navy recovery facility. He was connected with the FAA and I was told that if I wanted to maintain my medical certificate for flying as a recovered alcoholic that I had to submit to an annual psychiatric evaluation. That’s the point at which I said “screw you guys, I don’t need flying that much.” Because I didn’t. I didn’t have the money. That kind of brought about the combined reasons why it was inappropriate for me to retain flying status from 1978 on.  But before that I did enroll in some 172 flying courses at the Santa Monica airport.

Flying with writers… [Richard] Bach said, Here’s this Tiger Moth.” He said, “Here’s where you’re going to sit.” And I said, “here are you going to sit.” He said, “I’m staying on the ground and you’re gonna go fly.” We one dual circuit and then he got out. My oldest son joined us later and people were saying your dad was flying the Tiger Moth. My son said, “Gee dad that’s great you haven’t been flying for 10 years.”

Fun at NASA… Flying a helicopter was one of the neater things we did at NASA. We got checked out on a really small Bell. The lunar module pilots flew Bell helicopters. We began to be trained in the lunar landing training vehicle.

Airplane emergencies… There was a test flight of an F-86 while I was at the Air Force Academy. I climbed up to high altitude and the inside pressure is increased when you turn the heat up. I got to altitude, turned the heat up, and all the sudden there was a horrendous explosion. I grabbed the [ejection] handles because there was fog in the cockpit. But the instruments all looked normal so I let go of the handles. The canopy had exploded, so I had to bring it down for a landing. But I’ve never had to really bail out, fortunately.

Fun in jets… The last flight I had in an F-86, I knew that. It was legal to do spins in that model. I had never done spins in a jet before. I learned more in that one flight about being together with an airplane where it was a part of me and I was a part of it after having done about 8 or 10 spins. I wish I had done that before going to Korea.